Shoulder Flexibility for Weight Lifting

Inflexible shoulders make it difficult to use the most effective upper-body bulking movements: overhead press, bench press, and pull-ups.

Shoulder problems are common among weight lifters, especially those lifters who focus on the bench press. Long-time bench pressers often develop strength imbalances and flexibility problems in the shoulders, chest, and upper back. Posture irregularities – such as inflexibility of the thoracic spine – make matters worse.

However, as a beginner, you have the opportunity to take a long-term approach to shoulder health. A sensible bulking program, complemented by reasonable flexibility training, will get you where you want to be: stronger and more powerful, yet fully capable of moving your shoulder joints through their full range of motion.

Are your shoulders flexible?

You were probably born with flexible shoulders. But the “use it or lose it” principle has a way of reducing the effective range of motion until you become hampered by inflexibility.

Take a quick test: standing tall, lock your elbows and raise your arms straight up above you. If a friend standing off to the side is unable to see your ear in front of your raised arm, you are not flexible enough to get the most out of a weight lifting program. Your progress in overhead presses, especially, will stall early due to inflexibility of the shoulder joints.

Here are two other moves which give insight into the state of your shoulder joints:

Wall extensions

After warming up your shoulder joints, perform a “wall extension” and see how well you do:

• Stand up straight with your back and your heels against a wall.
• Extend your arms straight out to your sides.
• Bend at the elbows until your forearms are pointing straight up.
• At this point, your entire arm should be pressed against the wall; pretend you’re being held at gunpoint.
• Carefully raise your arms above your head, keeping them flat against the wall.

If you are unable to easily bring your hands together above your head while your shoulders, elbows, and wrists remain pressed against the wall, you have insufficient flexibility in your shoulders.

You may find that your posterior deltoids need to work hard to keep your arms against the wall. This is usually caused by chest exercises that you haven’t counterbalanced with pull-ups or other back work.

Shoulder dislocates

Another way to test your shoulder flexibility is through the use of shoulder dislocates (sometimes called shoulder dislocations).

After a thorough warm-up:

• Grab a broomstick, rope, or resistance band and hold it in a wide grip in front of you with your arms straight.
• Pull your shoulder joints forward.
• Keeping your elbows locked, carefully raise your arms overhead in a sweeping arc.
• Only your shoulder joints should be involved in the shoulder dislocation exercise.
• Continue the arc behind your head until the broomstick or band touches the small of your back.

People with shoulder tightness will need to keep their hands wide apart during the shoulder dislocate. As flexibility improves, you should be able to smoothly perform the exercise while your hands are less than two shoulder-widths apart.

Image Credit:Cynner_SF

Shoulder stretching

Stretching should accompany weight lifting, especially if you are using low reps and near-maximum weights.

But be careful. It takes a significant amount of time to increase shoulder flexibility. Remember these shoulder stretching tips:

• Joint laxity is not the same thing as flexibility.
• Don’t risk the connective tissue.
• Never push through a tight part of a stretch.
• Be cautious during ballistic stretching.
• Never relax your shoulder joints while supporting a heavy weight during shrugs, deadlifts, or weighted pull-ups. You want to hold the weight with your large muscles, not with your tiny rotator cuff.

The best way to regain lost range of motion in the shoulders is to start out slow. If you have a shoulder injury, it is wise to rest the shoulder. Stretching will only aggravate a pre-existing problem. It can take several months of rest to recover from a shoulder strain.

A twice-weekly program of wall extensions and shoulder dislocates will serve you well, no matter your current level of shoulder flexibility. Try two sets of ten of each exercise, and remember to take it slow!

Additional shoulder exercises

Here are a few other shoulder exercises you can try:

Around the world

• Take a heavy medicine ball, kettlebell, or weight plate and hold it with both hands at chin level.
• Move it around your head from front to side to back, and around the other side, several times without pausing.
• Don’t let the weight rise as it moves behind your head; keep it at a constant height above the floor.
• Reverse direction.
• Be sure to get a full range of motion in the shoulders, but don’t push past any sticking points.
• Although this is primarily a strengthening move, remember that weight-assisted stretching can be dangerous for un-prepared joints. Warm up thoroughly and don’t push it.

Door stretch

• Stand in a doorway and hook your forearms on either side of the doorframe.
• Allow gravity to assist you as you push through the opening.
• Gently stretch your pecs and the anterior deltoids.

Arm circles

Swing your arms in all directions, allowing momentum to assist the stretching. Remember that this sort of ballistic stretching can be dangerous if you have pre-existing connective-tissue damage. Take it easy and keep safety first and foremost in your mind.

Posterior deltoid raises

It is important to keep the muscles surrounding the shoulder strong and balanced. Strength imbalances will eventually pull the shoulder joint out of alignment, predisposing you to injury during a time of stress.

There are countless variations of the posterior deltoid raise, so pick one (or several) that you like, and use it to balance out your chest work. If you are diligent about using pull-ups, deadlifts, rows, and other back movements, you can probably dispense with isolation exercises like deltoid raises. But if you “failed” the flexibility tests listed earlier in this article, you probably need some additional rear deltoid work.

Bar hangs

Hang from a chin-up bar and stretch your lats and pecs. If you have shoulder problems, try to avoid hanging from the shoulder joint itself, hang from the large muscles instead.

If you swing — or “kip” — slightly while hanging, you will get a much more intense stretch. Remember to put safety first; I do not recommend this for beginners.